Bungles and Twitchers


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Oceania » Australia » Western Australia » Bungle Bungles
August 28th 2008
Published: October 15th 2008
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A particularly endearing aspect of some aboriginal languages is their habit of naming things twice, just in case you didn’t catch it the first time. Thus Australia still has a smattering of towns with such unlikely names as Wujal Wujal and Wagga Wagga, a sort of built-in acoustic action replay for the hearing impaired. Sadly folks these days are generally way too lazy for any of that sort of nonsense and just call them Wujal or Wagga, literally losing half their appeal in the process.

Our first stop on entering Western Australia was a region with the wonderful title of the Bungle Bungles, as unlikely a name as you’ll find anywhere, not least for the aboriginals who were as bemused as anybody when a local farmer picked it as the name of his property a century ago. Nobody these days has the slightest idea of why he did so or what it might mean. Evidently the heat must have been getting to him, but the name has stuck and somehow it’s strangely apt.

The Bungle Bungles resemble no other place on earth. They look like the kind of place the Tellytubbies might go on vacation to get away from
Boabs at SunsetBoabs at SunsetBoabs at Sunset

Parry's Creek Nature Reserve
all that Green. They’re orange and yellow and black in a striking stripy pattern not often seen in nature outside the world of wasp’s arses. Surreal beehives of rock emerge inexplicably from the flat plane, and then morph on their far side to an impressive red-rock escarpment of chasms and ravines.

They seem to possess a certain weird hallucinogenic quality which clearly affected the original farmer, as having given them their unusual moniker, he promptly forgot to mention anything about them to anyone at all for the next 80-odd years, until a bemused TV crew helicoptered by in the early eighties and were amazed to find Tinky-Winky & Co topless bathing between the monoliths.

Pretty soon word came out of other-worldly landscapes in North-West Australia, and in no time the Bungles were firmly entrenched in the tourist psyche, adorning brochures and featuring on holiday shows the breadth of the land.

Fortunately, like all good Aussie hotspots outside Bondi and the Opera House, they’re stuck out in the back-end of nowhere, which has kept development down to a minimum. Even though they’re relatively well frequented these days, there’s no danger of being crushed by the crowds, even in the prime-time of peak-season. The heat of the day keeps the number of walkers down, the less sprightly members of the populace choosing instead to buzz overhead in an ever-increasing swarm of helicopters. For our part we stayed firmly on terra firma, rapidly discovering that a) you cannot walk all day without carrying your own bodyweight in water, b) you cannot walk all day while trying to carry your own bodyweight in water, and c) even if you spend the whole night drinking your own bodyweight in hot tea, you’ll still bloody freeze half to death, particularly ironic as we’d rushed over here early specifically to avoid the hot summer nights. In every other respect, though, I’m happy to say they firmly lived up to their glowing reputation.

From the Bungles we moved down the road to Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater. When I say down the road it was a couple of hundred kilometres down a pretty rough dirt track, but with a name like Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater you really do have to go and have a look. Its draw is further enhanced by the 2005 film of the same name, about a trio of tourists who make
Blue SteelBlue SteelBlue Steel

Blue Winged Kookaburra, Bungle Bungles
the trip and then really wish they hadn’t, and is by some margin the scariest Aussie film ever made, making Picnic at Hanging Rock look like, well, a picnic. At Hanging Rock.

I have to say we were in two minds about taking this trip ourselves, as it was quite a hike to see a hole in the ground. Actually Debbie was in three minds, as she also didn’t fancy the prospect of being hacked to death by some local psycho in a cowboy hat; she certainly had no time for my suggestion of camping over. Fortunately the second largest impact crater in the world didn’t disappoint, a perfectly circular raised crater rim 800 metres across encircling a series of concentric rings leading in to the central bullseye. Once again it was first stumbled upon from the air, this time 60 years ago by a passing geologist who instantly recognised it for what it was, though even from the ground it’s pretty unmistakable. Even the local Aboriginals had noticed something very strange had happened to the ground here long ago, though they thought it was a giant snake coming out rather than a meteor going in. Unsurprisingly, with luck like that, he hasn’t thought to come home since.

After Wolfe Creek we backtracked up north to the little town of Wyndham on the edge of The Kimberley, where five mighty rivers meet at the edge of the sea draining the enormous floodplain. This being the end of The Dry, they weren’t quite the raging torrent they might have been, and in fact the whole town was something of a non-event, saved only by a side-trip to the settlers’ cemetery.
I always find these old burial grounds fascinating in a slightly spooky macabre sort of way, often containing tragic remains of whole families wiped out without reaching anything like a respectable age for our times. Wyndham was of particular note for the sheer numbers killed following accidents at the local meat-works; one has to imagine there must have been some mighty tasty pies back in the pioneering days, even in the leanest of years.

From Wyndham we headed for the big centre of Kununurra to resupply before hitting The Kimberley proper. On a whim we took the back route, and stumbled on a hidden gem at Parry’s Creek Nature Reserve.

Parry’s Creek was the site of my baptism into the weird world of Twitching. And be in no doubt, a weird world it certainly is. At check-in we were advised in hushed tones to make sure to get a good night’s sleep, as the Party in the Park kicked off at 6am round the Tit Pool. This was apparently the park’s main attraction, so best get up early to grab the best seats.

Quite what the Tit Pool was, or what exactly might go on there, was never really explained, but never one to miss a good party, I resolved to curb my basic instincts and hit the sack early, ready to arise bright and early at 6 to join the frivolities. I just about managed it too, awakening bleary eyed and not too hung-over at 6.15, a quick glance at the watch reassuring me at least another hour’s good sleep was in order before the day began.

And then I remembered. Tit Pool. Major Party Time. Shit, I’m late already!

Whipping back the curtains I vaguely discerned a rag-tag bunch in the middle-distance huddled in-front of what appeared to be a couple of murky puddles. Betwixt huddle and puddle was a mesh camouflage fence of the sort army types use to disguise themselves when they’re bunkered down. Clearly something interesting was going on.

I quickly donned my best military gear and zigzagged my way across no-man’s land to join my band of brothers. Only on reaching them did I glance up and twig that actually I’d signed up for Dad’s Army. Whatever this twitching business was, it seemed being of the sort of age for the onset of Parkinson’s was a distinct advantage. It also appeared to require a certain degree of quirkiness and an almost complete lack of fashion sense, and, as such, I was pleased to note that other than my relative youthfulness, I was looking like something of a natural.
Luckily I’d also brought along my binoculars, as it was immediately apparent that your standing in the Twitching world was directly related to the size of your optic lens. Mine was by far the most modest, but at least it showed I knew my place, which was evidently right at the far-end being studiously ignored.

Undeterred, I joined my colleagues in training my lenses through the mesh fence on the target zone, and was only mildly disappointed to note that even at 3.5 times magnification, we still appeared to have arisen at the crack of dawn to peer at two murky, unattractive, and very empty puddles. No sparkling water feature, no nubile maidens, and more reassuringly a complete lack of Speedo-clad Germans.
For the longest time it appeared that nothing at all was going to happen. Finally, just as I was wondering how I could slip away back to friendly territory without the risk of a court-martial, out of the blue a tiny zap of grey shot out from stage left and sploshed headlong into the nearest puddle, only to high-tail it out as quickly as it had arrived. The only response from the assembled firing-squad was the odd Roger Moore-esque eyebrow raise and an almost imperceptible hunching forward of the shoulders. The message was clear. It was game-on... the enemy about to engage. Shit Was About To Go Down!

Before I had time to blink it was all happening, zaps of grey emerging from all directions to frolic and splash and do whatever it is that tits do first thing in the morning. Once they’d established that we weren’t actually going to shoot them they even
Bazza the BrolgaBazza the BrolgaBazza the Brolga

Parry's Creek Nature Reserve
started to hang around long enough for you to get a proper look.
The first thing to note was that these guys were absolutely tiny, the kind of size normally reserved for a squirt of the fly spray. And the second interesting point was that, other than being tiny, there appeared to be nothing remotely interesting about them whatsoever. Twitchers, or bird-watchers as the rest of the world knows them, really did seem to be as sad a bunch as first appearances had suggested.

After a little while, though, I came to realise that not all grey zaps are born equal. As they hung around the pool for ever longer periods, I began to notice that one or two of the little buggers had a splash of green on the wing. And look, that one’s got a bright yellow beak, and little yellow legs. A third group had a tiny orange crest, and despite myself, I had to admit that I kinda liked them. It was around this time that I came to realise, with a certain sinking feeling, I was starting to actually enjoy this.

Oh, wow, look, that one over there looks just like a little panda! Other than the beak and wings obviously, which are always a bit of a giveaway for the true panda aficionado. I wonder if he likes bamboo? Before too long you find yourself picking out favourites and imagining whole complex personality traits in these little guys, and with a growing disquiet you realise you’re hopelessly hooked.
By the end of our stay I knew my Masked Finch from my Crimson Finch, my Rainbow Pitta from my Rainbow Bee-eater, and my Red-backed Fairy Wren from my Variegated Fairy Wren from my Purple-crowned Fairy Wren. There was even a Zebra Finch, though once again it was sadly lacking hooves or a flowing mane. In fact the strange thing was, despite being called a Tit Pool, there didn’t seem to be any actual tits at all. Unless, of course, they were referring to us.

The holy grail of the Twitchers’ world round these parts is the Gouldian Finch, a bird so rare that it is generally reckoned to be one good bush-fire away from oblivion. For the uninitiated among you, it basically looks like a sparrow as drawn by a particularly imaginative 5-year old with a brand new set of crayons who’s
My Fellow Twitchers...My Fellow Twitchers...My Fellow Twitchers...

Hardcore Ravers one and all!
swapped his daily Ritalin for a tab of acid. It was clearly one of the first creatures invented by God way back when he was still in his paint-by-numbers phase, and certainly long before Trinny and Susannah had a word in his ear about the dangers of colour-clash. In fact it’s such an unlikely looking creature that I’m fairly sure it doesn’t really exist at all, just a scam to keep gullible idiots like me off the street.

Needless to say, despite several early morning sorties, I didn’t spot a single one, though one or two of my more experienced colleagues claimed to have seen a juvenile, which is apparently a tiny and entirely grey ugly-duckling to the adults’ psychedelic swan, so I may in fact have seen hundreds, and played my own little part in their demise through the overly liberal application of my insect-repellent.

I still reckon they’re most likely in league with the Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster though, so if you do happen to see one on your way home tonight, probably best to do yourself a favour, keep it to yourself, and think about getting a few early nights, maybe lay off the recreational drugs for a while. Otherwise, before too long, you might find you’ve become something of a Twitcher yourself.

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